Hi grimep, thanks for posting this, it was posted on the old forum a long time ago, it's good to have it back on here. I think it's hilariously funny and also scarily accurate. If anyone here is not sure whether the SES is a cult or not, then watch this and count how many things are familiar! Brilliant stuff.

Pupil at St James Girl's School from 1979-1989, from age 4-14. Parents ex-members of SES.

thanks grime, we got the kids to watch this some time ago and they were quite bemused... as a parent I find it quite scary that my kids might one day be lured into a cult so I'll probably go overboard on teaching them how to recognise what they're getting into.

Plenty of techniques in the cult video are also used in the army, in advertising, in offices, in families, in gangs, in politics etc etc. I think cults take something that normally exists everywhere and then take it to an extreme. Parents use mind control on their kids all the time - they have to, just to maintain a degree of guidance. Question is, where does it cross the line and go horribly wrong? I guess its when faith in an ideology stops us questioning received wisdom.. but try telling kids to question the wisdom they receive from us - all hell breaks loose!

Witness wrote:Question is, where does it cross the line and go horribly wrong? I guess its when faith in an ideology stops us questioning received wisdom.. but try telling kids to question the wisdom they receive from us - all hell breaks loose!

I agree.

The line gets crossed too when the organisation existance is of greater importance than the welfare of the members it is exploiting. This can be true in companies for example and there is the idea of the corporate cult. Often however this is mitigated by two things, the fact that the person is getting a salary and the body of employment law designed to regulate unscrupulous practice. The trouble with the religious, spiritual or philosophy cult is that these organisations exist in an arena where there is very little in the way of regulation. Also they are organisations that try very hard to work round regulations.